FanNation - The Republic of Sport

Here in the state of Wisconsin there's a lot of excitement about the Milwaukee Brewers, Green Bay Packers and even University of Wisconsin football, and all of the excitement is deserving.  However, a lot of people are forgetting about the Milwaukee Bucks..not to worry I remembered them..and I want to talk a little bit about them.  They've had a busy offseason...and they're not getting a whole lot of mention around here. 

New General Manager John Hammond has been doing an amazing job thus far.  Larry Harris, our prior General Manager, gave a ton of money in horrific contracts to players who in all honesty weren't deserving.  Enter John Hammond who has to try and clean up this mess.  First move he made was trading both Bobby Simmons and Yi Jianlian, I'll admit Yi has some talent, but he never wanted to play here.  Then we got rid of Mo Williams..it was presumed that this summer we were either getting rid of Mo or Michael Redd..and well who honestly believed that Michael Redd was going to be traded?  

There's basically been a complete roster overhaul.  A lot of new faces are now in Milwaukee..and I'm pretty excited.  The biggest of these acquisitions is Richard Jefferson...will be another great offensive weapon along with Michael Redd.  Some other new memebers of this team are: Malik Allen, Francisco Elson, Adrian Griffin, Damon Jones, Tyronn Lue and Luke Ridnour.  The most underappreaciated of these players is Luke Ridnour. I really think he could be are starting point guard heading into this season.  Another player that we got that I like a lot is Francisco Elson...if he can add a bit of physicality upfront for us we'll be good.  We were incredibly soft in the frontline last year..and I think we've done quite a bit to adress that.

Now I want to take a look at our 2 draft picks.  Our first round pick was Joe Alexander...I'm a little confused by this pick, but I like the fact, that it at least appears to me that Joe won't be getting a whole lot of playing time right away as a rookie..obviously I have no idea how Scott Skiles is going to work the rotation..it just appears that way to me.  Our second round pick is Luc Richard Mbah a Moute...as confused as I was about the pick of Alexander I was even more stunned by this pick.  I didn't really think we should have taken Luc...it's not that I don't like him, but after thinking about it I realized it was a solid pick..he comes from a very good defensive system in UCLA..and hopefully he can help our overall team defense.

I really do believe that there's playoff potential on this team.  I don't see anymore trades being made...I don't think we'll be able to move any other bad contracts this year...looking at you Dan Gadzuric.  I see all of the changes that John Hammond was able to make as really good things. I was actually quite surprised at the roster overhaul that went down.  I think that John did a nice job though.  All of his moves have been for some pretty good players..or getting rid of some bad players.  I guess the one move that he made that I disagree with is getting rid of Desmond Mason, but he had to..there were just no minutes for Desmond.  Like I said I'm actually excited for this upcoming Bucks season..I see some major potential here.  Yep. This is a really exciting time to be a sports fan in the state of Wisconsin.